INTRODUCTION. 



The first volume of the Huntek-Natukalist is merely 

 introductory to what I propose to make, in every sense, a 

 " progressive" series of seven volumes. 



My cherished object in this undertaking is, to introduce 

 "within the general scope of Polite Literature, a pojipiar 

 Natural History: upon the production of which I have so 

 brought to bear the latest discoveries of Science, in the 

 application of mechanical forces to pictorial illustration, as 

 to cheapen all their cost without any deterioration of artistic 

 value ; and bring the essential spirit of what have been here- 

 tofore as sealed books, from their excessive costliness, within 

 the reach of the People. 



Then, again, what I mean by "popular" is to be found 

 in a regard of the highest sense of this vulgarized and 

 misused term in contrast with that of the scholastic use of 

 "technical" — a work belonging rather to the general litera- 

 ture than technical science of Natural History — treating of 

 its facts as well as cognate associations. A work, indeed, 

 aiming to be as gay as it is grave — as fanciful as it is 

 profound — as theoretical as accurate — as full of flesh and 

 blood as of philosophy — as human as it is transcendental — 

 as rhapsodically intoxicate as the hale air and blithe sunshine 

 out-of-doors can make it — and just sufiSciently spiced with 

 "learning" not to make one "mad." A work in which the 

 Animal Kingdom shall illustrate the Spiritual, and the Spirit- 

 ual the Animal, as well. A work in which Bird and Beast 

 shall be humanized to Man through Nature, and Man shown 

 to have been inhumanized to Beast and Bird through Society 

 — which shall rebuke fanaticism for its ignorance of natural 

 laws, while it shall plead against wantonness with our race 

 for reconciliation and for mercy to the humblest of God's 



